Berlin Maintains Clock Of Lives
A CLOCK of Lives operated by the Statistical Office in Berlin, Germany, informs spectators that the German population is constantly increasing. To insure being seen by many people, the clock was placed in Doenhoff-Place, a busy Berlin thoroughfare.

Rare, curious and ingenious old clocks are a fascinating and profitable hobby for collectors from every walk of life.

By John Armstrong

ALLEN BARRINGER is only twelve-going-on-thirteen but he’s made a reputation as the Father Time of Richmond, Va. Allen was the boy who set a couple of Richmond’s historic clocks ticking for the first time in years.

One of them looks out from the tower of the Pace Methodist Church and the other from atop the Jefferson Hotel. Starting out with the church clock, Allen devoted Saturday afternoons to the gigantic task of oiling the gears, cleaning and scouring the huge pendulum and generally putting things to rights.

There is a museum dedicated to him in his hometown of Lier Belgium and it looks like they still have this clock available for viewing. It kind of reminds me of a much less ambitious version of the Long Now Clock.

‘Wonder Clock’ Hands Turn Once in 26,000 Years

One master movement controls ninety-three different dials on the “Wonder Clock” built by a Belgian clockmaker. It was brought to this country recently for exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry in New York. The various faces show the time divisions of the world, the location and movements of the earth, sun, moon, planets and stars, high and low tides at the principal ports and other phenomena—all synchronized by the single movement.

Meet Greenhill and Rogers; they brought back the clock with the Mae West figure.

Arenaceous chronoscopes (that’s a fancy way of saying sand clocks) first occurred to antique clock dealers Samuel Greenhill and Joseph Rogers as a nifty display idea for their New York shop window. Passersby would stop, look, and fall under the spell of the fast-falling grains, the slow-growing hill of sand. They began hunting for an hourglass—a real 60-minute job. And what do you know? Not a dealer in the U. S. could get it for them. So they decided to make one.

If your wind-up alarm clock runs through its short tinkle without disturbing your slumber, try using this electric bell that will keep on ringing until you disconnect it. It employs a doorbell transformer and bell, housed in any decorative box that blends with the bedroom furniture.

Hume workshop hobbyists who own drill presses will find the new auxiliary work table shown at right extremely useful. The top is made of heavy gauge steel permanently bonded to a plywood base. Fits any type drill press. Comes complete with anchor studs, threaded bushings, irregular shaping pin and special pivoting fence with wing nut clamp. Provides a large, flat working surface for all operations.

The new type slip-stream deflectors above are said to keep the car’s windshield clear of all foreign substances. Fastened in front of the windshield, they turn the airstream and dirt aside.

Sugar Moon Dial Tricks Observers
A SAN FRANCISCO confectioner played a neat trick on his customers with a moon dial displayed in his window. But one night when the moon failed to shine the clock, made, by the way, entirely from sugar, kept on telling time just the same. Later it was discovered that the confectioner had arranged lights in the interior in such a manner that the joke went undetected.

A CRIPPLED inventor of Akron, Ohio, has recently completed what he believes is the world’s most wonderful clock. The remarkable instrument gives the comparative time in 27 different cities. In addition, it sings, talks and plays a reedless pipe organ every hour.

The “watchspring” above is actually a torsional delay line, a device used in such applications as computer work, trigger-delay circuits and radar range measurement. Developed at Bell Telephone Labs, it is made of Vibralloy, a ferromagnetic alloy. The spiral permits clear resolution of 10-microsecond pulses spaced 20 microseconds apart.

Sleepyheads may be awakened in the near future by a clock which announces in clear tones, “Seven o’clock,” or whatever the hour may be. Such a clock has been developed by a communications laboratory. It has an odd caricature face and a “voice” circuit which will put the exact hour into words. It is synchronized with a nationwide time service. The clock may be used as a train announcer, with a microphone connected into the speech circuit for making announcements other than telling the time.